pedantry

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. Pedantic attention to detail or rules.

n. An instance of pedantic behavior.

n. The habit of mind or manner characteristic of a pedant.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. An excessive attention to detail or rules.

n. An instance of such behaviour.

n. An overly ambitious display of learning.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. The act, character, or manners of a pedant; vain ostentation of learning.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. The manners, acts, or character of a pedant; the overrating of mere knowledge, especially of matters of learning which are really of minor importance; also, ostentatious or inappropriate display of learning.

n. Undue addiction to the forms of a particular profession, or of some one line of life.

Examples

Yet this monarch of all things detested pedantry, either as it shows itself in the mere form of Greek and Latin, or in ostentatious book-learning, or in the affectation of words of remote signification: these are the only points of view in which I have been taught to consider the meaning of the term pedantry, which is very indefinite, and always a relative one.

What you call the pedantry and priggishness and all the rest of it is exactly what poor Breckenridge asked almost on his knees, wonderful man, to be _allowed_ to pay you for; since even if the meddlers and chatterers haven't settled anything for those who know -- though which of the elect themselves after all _does_ seem to know?